Santander - worth the hassle?

Petard

innovate wrote: »

What took you years to stop using the credit card of an outfit that you found so incompetent?

It didn't take me years. I moved the credit card account to N&P, who were very good - but then Abbey or Santander, whichever it was at the time, took N&P over and I was back where I started!

For the rest, moving accounts is a fag, hence the policy of closing them only when it became convenient.

EDIT: If you were to accuse me of inertia, of wanting an easy banking life, you'd be right. It's not very praiseworthy in a would-be money saver, I know that!

susan47

Petard wrote: »

If others have had a good experience with Santander, then I hope it continues. I wish we had had your good fortune.

On this occasion, Santander blocked the card for no reason. My wife had it refused three times in a row at Sainsbury's - embarrassing in front of a Saturday afternoon queue, and thoroughly inconvenient.

Since they say they cannot reactivate it and must send out a new one, I am just grateful we weren't abroad at the time and relying on it there.

In 40 years of banking, I have had accounts with Abbey-National-Santander, Barclaycard, HBoS, Midland-HSBC, MBNA, National & Provincial, and Nationwide. Of these, HSBC and HBoS have made one mistake each that I can recall; Santander has made a whole series. They have paid our money in to someone else's account, for instance. On another occasion, when we asked to be issued debit cards, they refused, even though we had been customers for years and had Persil-white banking and credit records - only to issue them out of the blue and of their own volition a year or two later. When we complained about this, they didn't trouble to reply. They made other mistakes, too, serious ones. It became so bad that for years we had a policy of running down our accounts with Santander and placing no new business with them.

Money-saving people often ring banks on the 01xx number they provide for overseas enquiries, instead of paying more to call the usual 0845 numbers. If you want an indication of how Santander treats its customers, try ringing them on 01908-237963. If you do so from a landline, you will find that their automatic system is programmed to refuse the call. Santander is the only company I have ever come across that does this.

I have had accounts with Santander and its predecessors for four decades. In my experience, they are simply not very good at running a bank, and 'service' is a word they do not understand.

Well I have/have had a lot of accounts with a lot of banks, and they can pretty much all be tarred with the same brush in my experience. I've had cards blocked due to fraud, they said, or using the wrong PIN when I didn't...we've had fraud that wasn't recognised as fraud (good old Lloyds TSB)...my mother had somebody's else's wages paid into her account (RBS)...we completely fell out with HSBC after bad treatment there and having an account there for over 25 years...I can't even remember them all! But I currently have several accounts with Santander and they are all running smoothly, including a business account, two savings accounts and a 123 that is now giving me some nice interest on my utility bills. It almost makes me wish that I had a mortgage again...But as for the international phone number not working in the UK, that's commonplace these days and I have had that with so many companies, not just banks. It's annoying but they're on to our money saving tricks now!

Petard

With luck, Susan, each of us will have just a few banking problems in the course of our lives, and so what you or I say is in the end just anecdotal. So I've had a search and come across "Santander worst for bank service (again)", a report under 'News' on MSE's main site (21st August 2012).

Am I allowed to post links yet? Let me try.... Answer, no. You'll have to trace that article yourselves.

As to the phone numbers, I suppose the banks make a penny or two a minute out of 0845 numbers - but they can cost us 25p/min or more if we call from a mobile! This is adding double injury to insult if they've caused the problem in the first place.

There are exceptions. MBNA provide an 0800 number. Since this probably reflects a better corporate ethos, it's no surprise to me that their service has proven responsive.

EDIT: I have thought for some time that one can judge a company by its phone numbers - and I often do this before placing my business. 01/02/03 good, 0845 disappointing, 0843/4 & 0871 bad, 09xx very bad indeed!

Unreconstructed

I have been very happy with the 123 account, possibly even more so in the light of the recent energy increases.

However, I still maintain it will only be a matter of time before the account fee goes up, as there will surely be a tipping point when the current fee becomes unsustainable.

Cant really comment on their customer service as fortunately I have not had any need to deal with them on any major issues.

JimmyTheWig

Pretty appauling customer service. Tend to often get things wrong. Tend to take a lot of time and energy to sort them out.
But they tend to pay goodwill gestures when they do mess up.
And they tend to have good value products.

If it was a straight forward choice between Santander and another known name I would choose the other. But where Santander is the best-buy I will still go with them. Which is why we moved to the 123 account last week. Will wait and see what they get wrong with that...

innovate

Petard wrote: »

With luck, Susan, each of us will have just a few banking problems in the course of our lives, and so what you or I say is in the end just anecdotal.

I agree, what any of us posts here is statistically irrelevant.

Petard wrote: »

So I've had a search and come across "Santander worst for bank service (again)", a report under 'News' on MSE's main site (21st August 2012).

As much as I like MSE, this survey is pretty much meaningless. It only allows people to cast their votes for one bank, it assumes you need customer service (however that might be defined) a lot, it doesn't pay any attention whatsoever to the overall value you perceive the bank to be, and it doesn't normalise the survey results against the number of customers the bank has.

paulmapp8306

i like Santander in general, Ive been with them 12 years now.

Ive had a few issues, some their fault some not. In all cases things have beens orted out fairly quickly and painlessly. The only occasion that didnt happen I went into a branch instead of the phone, and it was sorted out very quickly.

The point is - if its not a routine issue (a problem that comes up a lot through one reason or another - not necessarily through Santanders fault) the call centres dont have the in depth knowledge to help. for this type os issue - go to a branch where they do have the knowledge.

The ONLY issue I have is their stupid idea of texting an authorisation code when yo udo online banking. What happens if I have no mobile? if Im out of coverage? or (as Im still a serving soldier) Im in Afghanistan trying to do my admin via the net - with no mobil and no service? Their answer - you cant. Pretty !!!! poor that - no backup for those with no mobil facility. I much prefer Barclays pinergistry thing (though its more of a pain if you HAVE got a mobile service).

Petard

innovate wrote: »

I agree, what any of us posts here is statistically irrelevant.

If I understand your position, it is that banks are much of a muchness. Do you have any statistical backing for that? I know reliable data are hard to come by....

innovate

I have drawn a lot of conclusions from my own experience - - which of course is statistically irrelevant. I have also seen what other people have posted here - again, statistically irrelevant. You can find lots of complaints cases studies on the FOS website - again, not statistically relevant but it clearly shows all the banks have their unhappy customers. There are some extensive complaints stats on the FSA website, which have more statistical relevance than anything else I have seen - but they suffer from the same problem as the MSE survey does - - the numbers are not normalised by numbers of customers. So to the un-initiated, banks with many customers could "look bad" because they have many complaints, whilst banks with fewer customers might "look good" because they have fewer complaints. But of course the numbers seen in isolation actually mean not much at all.

Sometime last year, I have seen a report about customer satisfaction in the banking industry from the ICS. I can't & won't divulge the contents (you can buy their latest report for £1,200) - suffice to say the banking industry mean is 77.4 (out of 100), with a spread of between just over 70 and up to 87. In my books, anything over 70 is a good result.

DCFC79

My mums not had any troubles with Sanatnder (was with them when they were A&L) so on that basis I would say yes it is worth it.